Brooks describes the Haimish line through a description “I know only one word to describe what the simpler camps had and the more luxurious camps lacked: haimish. It’s a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality. It occurred to me that when we moved from a simple camp to a more luxurious camp, we crossed an invisible Haimish Line. The simpler camps had it, the more comfortable ones did not.”

I spend a lot of time on both sides of the Haimish line and – as Mark says – much prefer being on the same side that Brooks describes as “the simpler camps.” Mark gives a ton of examples of how he does this as a VC, including going to SxSW, visiting companies at their offices (rather than having them come to him), participating in TechStars, having dinner with entrepreneurs, and his accelerator LaunchPad LA.

This philosophy is at the core of my passion for Startup Communities. It’s also part of the beauty of the Startup Community in Boulder.